The Sacred Scriptures - 29th Special Edition (Part 4/4). Johannes Biermanski

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ view. Daniel, looking onward from the time when the little horn was in the height of its power to the full end of the long contest between the saints and Satan with all his agents, notes three prominent events that stand as land-marks along the way. (1) The coming of the Ancient of days; that is, the position which YAHWEH takes in the opening of the judgment scene described in verses 9, 10. (2) The judgment that is given to the saints; that is, the time when the saints sit with the Messiah in judgment a thousand years, following the first resurrection (Rev.20:14), apportioning to the wicked/lawless the punishment due for their sins. Then the martyrs will sit in judgment upon the great anti-Christian, persecuting power, which, in the days of their trial, hunted them like the beasts of the desert, and poured out their blood like water. (3) The time that the saints possess the kingdom; that is, the time of their entrance upon the possession of the new earth. Then the last vestige of the curse will have been wiped away; sin and sinners, root and branch, will have been destroyed; and the territory so long misruled by the wicked/lawless powers of earth, the enemies of God's people, will be taken by the righteous, to be held by them forever and ever.

      1 Cor. 6:2, 3; Mat. 25:34.

      "VERSE 23. "Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be mightily from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. 24. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be mightily from the first, and he shall subdue/put down three kings. 25. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. 26. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end."

      We have here further particulars respecting the fourth beast and the little horn.

      Perhaps enough has already been said respecting the fourth beast (Rome) and the ten horns, or ten kingdoms, which arose therefrom. The little horn now more particularly demands attention. As stated on verse 8, we find the fulfilment of the prophecy concerning this horn in the rise and work of the papacy. It is a matter of both interest and importance, therefore, to inquire into the causes which resulted in the development of this anti-Christian power.

      The first pastors or bishops of Rome enjoyed a respect proportionate to the rank of the city in which they resided; and for the first few centuries of the Christian era, Rome was the largest, richest, and most powerful city in the world. It was the seat of empire, the capital of the nations. "All the inhabitants of the earth belong to her," said Julian; and Claudian declared her to be "the fountain of laws." "If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her pastor be the king of bishops?" was the reasoning these Roman pastors adopted. "Why should not the Roman Church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all nations be her children, and her authority their sovereign law?" "It was easy," says D'Aubigne, from whom we quote these words ("History of the Reformation," Vol. I, chap.1), "for the ambitious heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did so."

      The bishops in the different parts of the Roman empire felt a pleasure in yielding to the Bishop of Rome some portion of that honor which Rome, as the queen city, received from the nations of the earth. There was originally no dependence implied in the honor thus paid. "But," continues D'Aubigne, "usurped power increased like an avalanche. Admonitions, at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute commands in the mouth of the pontiff. The western bishops favored this encroachment of the Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the eastern bishops, or because they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a Pope rather than to the dominion of a temporal power."

      Such were the influences clustering around the Bishop of Rome, and thus circumstances tended toward his speedy elevation to the supreme spiritual throne of Christendom. But the fourth century was destined to witness an obstacle thrown across the path of this ambitious dream. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, began to teach and maintain "that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom the Father had created out of nothing, the instrument by whose subordinate operation the Almighty Father formed the universe, and therefore inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity." - This theory occasioned so fierce a controversy in the Christian church that a general council was called at Nicaea, by the emperor Constantine, A.D.325, to consider and adjust it. This opinion was condemned by the council, which decreed that Christ was of one and the same substance with the Father. Hereupon Arius was banished to Illyria, and his followers were compelled to give their assent to the creed composed on that occasion. (Mosheim, cent. 4, part 2, chap. 4: Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 239.)

      The controversy itself, however, was not to be disposed of in this summary manner, but continued for ages to agitate the Christian world, the Arians everywhere becoming the bitter enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the pope, the Bishop of Rome, who championed the couse of orthodoxy. From these facts it is evident that the spread of Arianism would check the influence of the Catholics; and the possession of Rome and Italy by a people of the Arian persuasion, would be fatal to the supremacy of a Catholic bishop. But the prophecy had declared that this horn would rise to supreme power, and that in reaching this position it would subdue three kings.

      Some difference of opinion has existed in regard to the particular powers which were overthrown in the interest of the papacy, in reference to which the following remark by Albert Barnes seems very pertinent: "In the confusion that existed on the breaking up of the Roman empire, and the imperfect accounts of the transactions which occurred in the rise of the papal power, it would not be wonderful if it should be difficult to find events distinctly recorded that would be in all respects an accurate and absolute fulfilment of the vision. Yet it is possible to make out the fulfilment of this with a good degree of certainty in the history of the papacy." - Notes on Daniel 7.

      Mr Mede supposes the three kingdoms plucked up to have been the Greeks, the Lombards, the Franks; and Sir Isaac Newton supposes they were the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Lombards, the Senate and Dukedom of Rome. Bishop Newton (Dissertation on the Prophecies, pp. 217, 218) states some serious objections to both these schemes. The Franks could not have been one of these kingdoms; for they were never plucked up before the papacy. The Lombards could not have been one; for they were never made subject to the popes. Says Barnes, " I do not find, indeed, that the kingdom of the Lombards was, as is commonly stated, among the number of the temporal sovereignties that became subject to the authority of the popes." And the Senate and Dukedom of Rome could not have been one; for they, as such, never constituted one of the ten kingdoms, three of which were to be plucked up before the little horn.

      But we apprehend that the chief difficulty in the application made by these eminent commentators, lay in the fact that they supposed that the prophecy respecting the exaltation of the papacy had not been fulfilled, and could not have been, till the Pope became a temporal prince; and hence they sought to find an accomplishment of the prophecy in the events which led to the pope's temporal sovereignty. Whereas, evidently, the prophecy of verses 24, 25 refers, not to his civil power, but to his power to domineer over the minds and consciences of men; and the pope reached this position, as will hereafter appear, in A.D. 538; and the plucking up of the three horns took place before this, and to make way for this very exaltation to spiritual dominion. The insuperable difficulty in the way of all attempts to apply the prophecy to the Lombards and the other powers named above is that they come altogether too late in point of time; for the prophecy deals with the arrogant efforts of the Roman pontiff to gain power, not with his endeavors to oppress and humble the nations after he had secured the supremacy.

      The position is here confidently taken that the three powers, or horns, plucked up before the papacy, were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths; and this position rests upon the following statements of historians.

      Odoacer, the leader of the Heruli, was the first of the barbarians who reigned over the Romans. He took the throne of Italy, according to Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol.III, pp. 510,515), СКАЧАТЬ